The Personal Lecture

How to make big classes feel small

Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Chronicle
Cynthia LaBrake, a lecturer in chemistry at the U. of Texas, often has her 400 students break into small discussion groups. Her 1970s-era classroom, which is scheduled for an overhaul next year, has desks bolted into the floor, posing a challenge. "We crawl over the space to reach them," she says. "It’s not ideal, but we make it work."

Introduction to Psychology is about to begin. A student in the front row of the studio audience cues her 23 classmates to give her professors a rousing cheer. Cameras are rolling as the rest of the class — all 910 of them — tune in from their...